


one last thing before i go

by Jo_B



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Post-Episode: s05e09 100
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28204788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jo_B/pseuds/Jo_B
Summary: “I’ll make sure he knows how we met. I’ll tell him the story, over and over, every year so he doesn’t forget. He’s going to know what love is. What it means. He’s going to know that we’ll love him forever and that… that you and I…”He closes his eyes, and for just a split-second, he is speeding frantically down his old neighborhood roads.“I didn’t tell you on the phone that I loved you,” he admits. “Maybe I should have. But I think you already knew.”// A few one-way phone calls post-100.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & Jack Hotchner, Aaron Hotchner/Haley Hotchner
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	one last thing before i go

**Author's Note:**

> A new trend for me has been writing things that make me cry. This never happened before 2020, I swear. "100" just absolutely wrecked me.
> 
> Anyway, this fic is based off of a podcast episode, "One Last Thing Before I Go" from "This American Life." (Hence the title I blatantly ripped.) It was originally created in 2016 and they re-released it over the summer in 2020. It makes me ugly cry every time but it's incredibly poignant and I highly recommend. You can find it on their website.
> 
> I didn't bother proofreading this either so it is what it is! I'd love it if you dropped a comment too. Happy holidays!

* * *

“Inside is a black rotary phone, resting on a wood shelf. This phone connected to nowhere. It didn't work at all.

But that didn't matter to Itaru. He just needed a place where he felt like he could talk to his cousin, a place where he could air out his grief.  
And so putting an old phone booth in his garden, which sits on this little windy hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean, it felt like a perfect solution.

He's saying, because my thoughts could not be relayed over a regular phone line, I wanted them to be carried on the wind.”

— “One Last Thing Before I Go,” _This American Life_ (2016)

* * *

The day Jack graduates preschool is a knife twisting in his chest. It must show on his face, but luckily every other adult in the room is polite enough not to explicitly call him on it.

He catches nearly every sideways glance his way, though. He takes Jack’s hand, walks him across the temporary stage on the long side of the classroom, and can all but hear every murmur from every parent to the other, every hushed conversation during the car rides home: “That poor family.”

“That poor kid,” they’d say. “Poor Jack. Poor Aaron.”

They’d say, “Poor Haley.”

A father or two who might not watch the news regularly, or who tend to steer clear of gossip, might tilt their heads at first, might take a moment to ask, and their wives would all shake their heads and tightly frown and say, “Poor Haley Hotchner was murdered, and even her F.B.I. husband couldn’t stop it.”

He stopped correcting those who forgot he was the _ex-_ husband, that he lost Haley long before he well and truly lost her for good.

They’d say, “I heard she up and left for months, and the guy still found her.”

They’d say, “I heard he killed her right in front of her son, too.”

They’d say, “I heard Aaron’s the one that finally shot the guy.”

The details tend to have lives of their own, deviating this way and that, all distinct permutations of the truth. He had never been bothered to straighten out a single one.

Jack’s tiny voice cheering, “I’m working the case, Daddy!” is the only truth that particularly matters to him, anyway.

A brand new preschool diploma is framed and held tightly in Jack’s free arm, and once they’re off the stage and out of the center of attention, Aaron scoops his son up and kisses his cheek.

“I am so proud of you, buddy,” he says, and the way his son wraps his arms around his neck and squeezes is answer enough. “Are you going to show Aunt Jessica your certificate?”

They reach the back where Jessica is sitting, beaming, and Jack emerges from Aaron’s neck just in time to climb down and rush to show her.

Jack is four-and-a-half years old, and he grins wide at today’s accomplishment, but the flickers of grief in between are hard to miss, Haley’s absence hard not to feel.

She should be here for her son’s preschool graduation. Should be here for his high school graduation, his college graduation, his prom, his driver’s test, his wedding, and all the chaos in between.

Should, would, can’t, won’t. Her absence is gaping hole in his chest, and he holds Jack so _tight_ every second he can today. He wonders how much of it is for Jack’s benefit and how much is for his own.

And he considers it all such a shame: he saved his son from a killer, would risk everything to keep him safe, but can’t save him from the lifetime of grief to follow. Perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised.

He can’t even save himself from that.

* * *

It’s an idea.

The child psychologist offered the suggestion, and he figures it’s well-worth the try.

“Jack?” He knocks lightly on the door frame, and his son looks up from the action figures on the floor and waves. “Hey, buddy.”

Aaron sets the box in his hands to the side and kneels down on the floor. “What are you up to?”

Jack holds up one figurine and explains, “This guy is taking all the bad guys to jail.”

“Oh, yeah? What did the bad guys do to go to jail?”

He considers the question for a moment. “I think they robbed a bank.”

“Well, that would do it,” Aaron smiles.

“You’re not allowed to rob banks,” Jack continues. He wiggles the figure in his hand once again. “But it’s okay because the good guy always wins and puts the bad guys in jail.”

He wishes so badly that were true. More than once, he’s found himself wishing that the world could somehow work in black and white, a picture-perfect place where the good always won and the bad always lost – a place where men like Foyet would never be able to take good people away from their families.

One day, he’ll tell Jack everything that happened in their old house. One day, he’ll have to explain that sometimes good people lose and bad people win, and it is among the very worst tragedies of life.

He can’t even begin to imagine the words he will use when that time comes.

“That’s really cool, Jack,” he says. “But I have something important to give to you. Can I show it to you now?”

The four-and-a-half year old sits up straight and nods excitedly, and Aaron grabs the box next to him and opens it up.

An old rotary phone without the cord isn’t a toy, and Jack tilts his head at it for a moment.

“I was thinking that after today, we might want to… tell Mommy all about it,” he says, and he sets the phone down on the floor between them. “Now, you know—you know she can’t say anything back. But I want you to know that on a special day like today, or just when you might be feeling sad, or you miss her, you can still talk to her. Just…”

He picks up the receiver and holds it to his ear. “Just like this. Do you want to give it a try?”

He holds it out, and slowly, Jack takes it from his hand. Before he brings it to his own ear, he asks, “Can she really hear us?”

A pause, and he stops to consider that that was the real question, wasn’t it? He takes a deep, shuddering breath.

“I think she can.”

Jack finally nods and brings the phone to his ear. A few seconds go by with no words.

“You can say, ‘Hi, Mommy,’” Aaron suggests, and Jack echoes.

“Hi, Mommy.”

“What happened today?” he leads. “Go ahead and tell her.”

“Mommy, I graduated preschool today,” Jack starts, slowly at first, but then he picks up. “Miss Stevens had us line up on the wall and we had to be real quiet for all the parents. I got a certificate, and Daddy put it on the wall, and then we went out for lunch with Aunt Jessica. I got a grilled cheese.”

He trails off, and Aaron smiles.

“Is there anything else you want to tell her?”

After a moment of thought, Jack nods again. “I miss you.”

A beat. “I know she misses you too, buddy.”

“I love you.”

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Jack hangs up the phone.

* * *

May in D.C. is pleasant and warm, but not yet oppressive and sticky like June, and trees around him rustle lightly in the wind.

Haley’s old phone is heavy in his hand.

The battery is dead, but it’s a bit of a moot point. The number stopped working the day she went into protective custody, but all of her old texts and photos still live on it: proof that Haley Brooks was here, was once so alive and happy.

He refuses to look through her texts, because they were hers and hers alone, but he saved every photo he could of her and Jack.

Usually, the phone sits untouched in his nightstand drawer.

Today, he flips it open to a dark, empty screen and puts it to his ear. The cemetery is quiet and still, and for as far as he can see, he is the only one here.

There is no line, so there is no sound. That doesn’t stop him from imagining for a moment, exactly four rings before she’d pick up on the fifth.

When times were better, she’d ask him how his day was going.

“Hi,” he starts, perhaps a bit too soon – before he has anything else planned to say. But wasn’t this the point, not to plan?

He clears his throat and goes again.

“Hey, it’s me,” he says. The gravestone in front of him doesn’t answer, nor does the grass below. “I’m… having trouble deciding what to say.”

A few long moments pass in silence.

“I’ve been thinking about our first apartment in Seattle, the studio on 15th street. In the winter, the radiator would make that loud banging sound, but we got used to it after a few weeks. I didn’t even notice that my apartment now makes the same sound, but it scared Jack the first few times the heat came on. I think he’ll get used to it, too.”

He trails off for just a second or two.

“I’ve also been thinking about the promise I broke,” he says. “The last one. I know there were a few of those. But I told you… I told you we were going to catch Foyet. And that I’d spend the rest of my life making it up to you.”

The cemetery is so unbearably silent.

And he whispers, “I’m so sorry, Haley. I’m sorry you had to be the one to pay for my mistakes. I’m sorry I—I couldn’t get there in time.”

He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “And you know I’ll still… do everything I possibly can. Everything I can to try to make it up to you. I’ll do everything I can to give Jack the best life, make sure he grows up happy, make sure he knows who his mom was.”

There are tear tracks snaking down his face, but he doesn’t bother to scrub them away.

“I’ll make sure he knows how we met. I’ll tell him the story, over and over, every year so he doesn’t forget. He’s going to know what love is. What it means. He’s going to know that we’ll love him forever and that… that you and I…”

He closes his eyes, and for just a split-second, he is speeding frantically down his old neighborhood roads.

“I didn’t tell you on the phone that I loved you,” he admits. “Maybe I should have. But I think you already knew.”

There are some things he never had to say out loud.

There are also some things that she never had to say out loud, either.

* * *

August is hot and humid, and he may be sweating through his suit under the summer sun, but he pays it little mind.

“Jack’s about to start kindergarten,” he says. “He’s really excited. We went shopping last week to get him some new clothes, and your sister got him a brand new lunch box. It’s blue, with dinosaurs and stars all over it. I think you would probably get him the same one.”

As usual, the gravestone does not answer.

“He’s enrolled in the program you wanted, too. Tuition is a little tight, but you know, we’ll make it work.”

The cost of a funeral set him back a bit, but he’s managing.

“Sometimes I don’t think I can do this,” he admits. “I have to, and I want to so badly, but the stakes feel so high. Higher than anything else I’ve ever done. I just need him to grow up happy and healthy and safe. He’s all I have left.”

It’s not quite true, but most days, it feels like it is.

“You always did it like it was nothing. You made it all look easy.”

A few birds fly overhead, and the light breeze is as warm as everything else today, but it’s welcome.

“I miss you.”

* * *

December is cold and bitter, and the trees around Haley’s grave are bare. There is no snow on the ground, but he can smell it in the air – there will be soon.

“I’ve been thinking about our wedding,” he says. Her phone is freezing against his ear. “Thinking about how we stood in front of our families and said our vows.”

They stood up in front of everyone who mattered to them and promised to love each other for the rest of their lives.

“I always imagined us growing old together. Jack would grow up, go to college, get married, and have his own kids. And we’d absolutely spoil them.”

He smiles for a fleeting moment.

“We’d have everyone over for holidays. Maybe we’d even move somewhere along the Potomac, too. Get a few dogs.”

And then it fades.

“You know, before…” And he sighs. “Before you were gone. Dave told me that I really let the purest thing in my life get away. He was right. God, Haley, I thought…”

He sighs, wishing that the gravestone or the flowers or the a voice on the other end of an imaginary line would interrupt him, but they don’t.

“Every night while you and Jack were in New Jersey, I thought about all the ways I would beg you to take me back. I thought that when this was all over, I would never let you go again. Would you have said yes?”

The grave, the flowers, the phone – all silent.

“Is it cold where you are?” he asks. “I hope—wherever you are, I hope you’re staying warm.”

He says, “Jack and I are coming back tomorrow with more flowers and a string of lights. He thought you might like them.”

He says, “Merry Christmas, Haley.”

He says, “I love you.”

And after a few more minutes, he flips her phone shut and puts it back in his jacket pocket. He smiles.

“Until next time.”


End file.
